From Coal to Code: Are We About to Repeat History?

Growing up in the Barnsley area, coal mining was more than simply an industry. It was part of the identity of entire communities, shaping the towns, villages and families that surrounded it. My father was a miner, working in an industry that included places such as Pilley Colliery, officially known as Wharncliffe Silkstone Colliery. Like so many families across South Yorkshire, our history was closely connected to the pits, and although I was too young to understand the political arguments surrounding the 1984–1985 Miners' Strike, I grew up witnessing the economic consequences of what followed.

The closure of Britain's coal mines wasn't simply about thousands of people losing their jobs. Entire communities lost the industries around which they had been built, taking with them a sense of security, identity and economic purpose. Shops struggled, opportunities disappeared and generations found themselves growing up in places still suffering from decisions made decades earlier. It is something that has stayed with me, particularly as I have grown older and begun to understand just how dramatically those closures changed the part of the country I call home.

Now, more than forty years later, I find myself looking at another industrial revolution, only this time it isn't happening underground. It is happening on computer screens, inside offices and across industries that, until relatively recently, seemed relatively secure from automation.

And this time, it is my own profession that could be caught in the middle.

When an industry disappears, the damage lasts for generations

The miners' strike remains one of the most divisive periods in modern British history. Arguments about Margaret Thatcher, Arthur Scargill, government policy and the future of the coal industry continue today, but regardless of where people stand politically, the economic consequences of the industry's collapse are difficult to dispute.

Coal mining had been declining for decades before the strike, and closures continued over several years afterwards. Yet for individual communities, the disappearance of employment could be devastatingly sudden. When a major colliery closed, hundreds or sometimes thousands of livelihoods were affected, alongside businesses that depended upon miners and their families having money to spend.

A 2024 report by Sheffield Hallam University, State of the Coalfields, found that Britain's former mining communities continued to experience significant economic disadvantages. The researchers estimated that approximately 90,000 additional residents would need to be employed for former coalfield areas to match the national employment rate.

That is nearly four decades after the strike ended.

The lesson, at least from my perspective, is that economic change can happen considerably faster than communities can recover from it. Politicians and businesses may talk about modernisation, efficiency and moving towards new industries, but those conversations sound very different when you're living somewhere that has lost its principal source of employment.

It is one thing to be told that the economy is changing. It is another to discover that the skills you've spent your working life developing are suddenly worth considerably less than they were yesterday.

A different kind of industrial revolution

I'm a graphic and web designer by trade, and over the past few years I've watched artificial intelligence progress from something of a novelty into technology capable of producing artwork, creating websites, generating advertising campaigns and completing increasingly complicated creative tasks.

What once required specialist software, experience and hours of work can now, in some circumstances, be produced within minutes by somebody entering a handful of instructions into an AI system.

Of course, producing an image or website isn't necessarily the same as producing good design. Understanding a client's business, developing a visual identity, knowing how audiences respond to different messages and creating something genuinely appropriate still require thought, experience and judgement. AI-generated work can be generic, inaccurate or simply unsuitable for its intended purpose.

But there is an uncomfortable commercial reality here. If a business believes it can achieve an acceptable result through an inexpensive AI tool, will it continue paying a professional designer to produce something better? And if enough businesses begin making that decision, what happens to the people whose livelihoods depend upon providing those services?

The government's own 2026 assessment of creative industry skills acknowledges that AI is already changing how creative professionals work, with some roles shifting from producing work directly towards overseeing AI-generated output. It also raises concerns about entry-level opportunities as tasks traditionally performed by junior workers become easier to automate.

That last point is particularly important. If companies stop employing junior designers because AI can handle much of their work, where will the experienced designers of tomorrow come from? Every skilled professional started somewhere, and removing those opportunities could have consequences that aren't immediately obvious when a business celebrates reducing its production costs.

The speed of change is what worries me

I am not against artificial intelligence. Far from it. I find much of the technology fascinating, and I can see enormous opportunities for people who use it intelligently. AI could remove repetitive tasks, help smaller businesses compete with larger organisations and allow creative professionals to spend more time developing ideas rather than completing routine production work.

There is a genuinely exciting future in which technology makes creative industries more accessible, productive and innovative.

However, I increasingly worry that the conversation is concentrating almost entirely on what AI will make possible, without properly considering what happens to the people whose existing work it may replace.

Research from the International Labour Organisation suggests that most jobs exposed to generative AI are more likely to be transformed than eliminated entirely. That is encouraging, although the organisation also makes clear that the consequences will depend heavily upon how businesses adopt the technology and whether workers receive opportunities to adapt.

The crucial distinction is that exposure to AI does not automatically mean unemployment. We do not yet know how many creative jobs will ultimately disappear, how many will change or how many entirely new opportunities might emerge.

But that uncertainty doesn't make the speed of development any less unsettling.

What makes this different from the collapse of coal mining is the sheer scale of the potential disruption. Britain's coal industry was concentrated in identifiable communities, while AI can affect occupations across almost every country simultaneously. A designer in Barnsley, a marketing professional in London and a developer in New York could all find themselves competing against the same rapidly improving technology.

There may never be one dramatic announcement that an industry is closing. Instead, there could be fewer commissions, smaller creative teams, disappearing junior vacancies and businesses gradually deciding they no longer need to employ as many people.

For those affected, however, the outcome could feel remarkably familiar.

Have we learned anything from the past?

The answer shouldn't be to stop technological progress, any more than protecting mining communities required Britain to depend upon coal forever. Industries evolve, and sometimes the technologies replacing established ways of working bring genuine benefits to society.

The important question is how that transition is managed.

We should be talking seriously about retraining, protecting opportunities for younger workers, supporting smaller businesses and making sure the economic benefits of AI aren't enjoyed exclusively by the companies that develop and deploy it. Simply telling people to learn new skills is not enough if the industries they might retrain for are undergoing the same disruption.

Britain has already experienced what happens when major economic change leaves whole communities struggling to find their place in the future. Those consequences can persist for generations, long after the original decisions have become little more than chapters in history books.

As the son of a miner, I know that story particularly well. As a designer watching AI transform my profession, I'm beginning to wonder whether we're about to see another version of it, only on a much larger scale.

I want AI to succeed. I want to see the incredible things it could make possible, and I certainly don't believe the future should be held back simply because technology threatens established ways of working.

But I also want us to remember the people whose livelihoods could be affected along the way.

Because I grew up in a part of Britain that knows what happens when an industry disappears and the promised replacement opportunities don't arrive quickly enough.

I just hope we don't have to learn that lesson all over again.